Rent-A-Sultan

First things first before it’s too late: Happy new year to all you faithful readers (and of course to the faithless ones, too).

The Heavy Light is getting a slightly tardy start into 2011 partly because I’m still a little comatose from eating a ton of Janet and Joe’s christmas cookies (mmmh) but even more importantly because The Sultans are getting their own show at the Deutsche Haus at NYU.

Visitors can admire the glorious geezers in spectacular printed matter and in majestic sizes up to 30×40 inches; jaws will drop, i-phone affected minds might get blown!!!(!)

This will be my first solo show and as I’m writing my own hyperbole (any PR person looking for an internship?) I’m also a wee bit nervous about figuring out the whole process, especially about recouping the costs of the show or (dream big alert) turning a profit with it.

Over the years I’ve purchased a nice little collection of art but my continuing problems with buying other peoples’ work are that I have limited real estate for it, that it’s hard to come up with the money for something striking, and that I’m not sure what to do with it in the long run. I have some paintings, drawings and photographs on my walls that I dearly love (the art, not the walls) but after looking at them for years and years I wouldn’t mind a change. It’s pretty much impossible to sell the pieces since most of them are not collectables from big name artists, throwing them away would make me a bad person, and storing them (which is what I do) is a drag in New York.

So, here’s what I’m thinking: Renting art work. I know it’s done on a corporate level, so maybe it could work on a private level as well. Instead of selling a framed and mounted print for let’s say $1200 you could rent it for the first year at $400. If you really like it you rent it for another year ($350), if you really really like it you extend the rental ($325) and after 4 years and $1400 it’s yours. It’s a little more than buying outright but this way you can be sure it really goes well with the sofa. For the same price as purchasing one image you could also exchange it after one year for another Sultan and then for another. After that you could hang up a picture of a naked lady and look at that for a while.

So, now my question to you dear reader is:

Does renting art sound like a good idea to you, or more to the point, would you (yes, you) personally ever rent a piece of art for your home or as a gift?

Please respond via the comments on this site or if you’re the shy and private type I would love to get an email, a call , a letter or a visit, too.

3 Responses

Congrats! What a way to start the year. Make sure someone youtubes the exhibit opening.

And yes I totally think “rent an art piece” would work (although I am all set for a while, after finally getting almost everything hung). What I don’t quite get, if you only want to stick with a piece for two years, it falls fully back to the owner? You would have to work out the details (including the insurance question — liability is definitely a word I picked up in the US), and most important set up a website presenting things nicely, ideally not only the art piece, but also some bio of the artist.

Meanwhile I keep playing the lottery to finally solve the finding proper money for proper real estate problem;-)